During the course of the war some sixteen Editions of this work
have appeared, each of which was, I hope, a little more full and
accurate than that which preceded it. I may fairly claim, however,
that the absolute mistakes made have been few in number, and that I
have never had occasion to reverse, and seldom to modify, the
judgments which I have formed. In this final edition the early text
has been carefully revised and all fresh available knowledge has
been added within the limits of a single volume narrative. Of the
various episodes in the latter half of the war it is impossible to
say that the material is available for a complete and final
chronicle. By the aid, however, of the official dispatches, of the
newspapers, and of many private letters, I have done my best to
give an intelligible and accurate account of the matter. The
treatment may occasionally seem too brief but some proportion must
be observed between the battles of 1899-1900 and the skirmishes of
1901-1902.

My private informants are so numerous that it would be hardly
possible, even if it were desirable, that I should quote their
names. Of the correspondents upon whose work I have drawn for my
materials, I would acknowledge my obligations to Messrs. Burleigh,
Nevinson, Battersby, Stuart, Amery, Atkins, Baillie, Kinneir,
Churchill, James, Ralph, Barnes, Maxwell, Pearce, Hamilton, and
others. Especially I would mention the gentleman who represented
the 'Standard' in the last year of the war, whose accounts of
Vlakfontein, Von Donop's Convoy, and Tweebosch were the only
reliable ones which reached the public.

Arthur Conan Doyle, Undershaw, Hindhead: September 1902.

CHAPTER 1.

THE BOER NATIONS.

Take a community of Dutchmen of the type of those who defended
themselves for fifty years against all the power of Spain at a time
when Spain was the greatest power in the world. Intermix with them
a strain of those inflexible French Huguenots who gave up home and
fortune and left their country for ever at the time of the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The product must obviously be
one of the most rugged, virile, unconquerable races ever seen upon
earth. Take this formidable people and train them for seven
generations in constant warfare against savage men and ferocious
beasts, in circumstances under which no weakling could survive,
place them so that they acquire exceptional skill with weapons and
in horsemanship, give them a country which is eminently suited to
the tactics of the huntsman, the marksman, and the rider.